2010 Ford Focus RS - $59,990EGC

You could call it a bolt from the blue oval. When Ford Australia announced in July it would import the Focus RS hot hatch from Europe, the news became one of the genuine industry surprises of the year.

The company has seemingly ignored plenty of more significant models - as well as the original RS - from the continent.

Ford Australia, however, had been keeping the RS surreptitiously on its radar. A faint blip finally became an audible ping mid-year but only after just-departed president Marin Burela convinced his former comrades in Europe to redirect a batch of 315 RS models originally designated for Ireland to its distant outpost.

At $59,990, it is the most expensive non-FPV Ford the Australian dollar can buy. That elevates the RS well above mainstream offerings such as the Golf GTI and Drive's recently crowned Best Performance Car Under $60,000, the Renault Sport Megane.

The Ford can't shake Volkswagen's iconic Golf hatch, however.

The range-topping Golf R is an obvious adversary for the RS - not least because both are built in Germany - and is almost as fresh off the boat.

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VW's fastest Golf has never been more affordable, with a price starting from $48,490 for a three-door model - or $49,990 for the five-door we chose for this comparison. The flagship Golf, under its various badges, has also never been without a V6 for its 20-odd-year existence but the R adheres to VW's engine-downsizing philosophy and borrows a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo from the sister Audi S3.

Japan also has a couple of rather well-known performance models in this neck of the woods.

Mitsubishi, alas, didn't have an example of its $59,990 mad-as-a-hatter Lancer Evolution available for test, so Asia's lone contender here is the Evo's domestic nemesis: the Subaru WRX STI.

The Subaru Tecnica International model is three years into its current generation, though it was recently given updates that included the introduction of a sedan model and automatic gearbox.

We hit both the road and the track to discover which is the best of these turbo terrors.